ESCORTED TOURS WILDLIFE DESTINATIONS
Whether clients want to gawp at gorillas, look out for lemurs or be wowed by the big five, there’s a tour whatever their bucket-list wildlife experience. Unless they’re David
Attenborough types, clients will really benefit from the expert knowledge provided by a local guide on an escorted tour, as well as being able to share their experiences with a group and avoid having to plan a complex trip themselves. Ensure you’ve done your homework so that clients visit destinations at the best possible time of year: tiger- spotting in India is easiest from November to the end of March, for example, while the best time to watch brown bears fishing for salmon in Canada is in May.
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LEMURS IN MADAGASCAR If DreamWorks film Madagascar taught us
anything, it’s that lemurs are impossibly cute. What the movie didn’t tell, us, though, is that the world’s fourth-largest island is one of the most diverse, and a paradise for exotic wildlife. Madagascar is home to 5% of all known animal and plant species, including 50 types of lemur, 70 species of chameleon and 6% of the world’s frogs. Clients are best off exploring Madagascar’s unspoiled protected areas as part of a small group tour, which will allow them to respect their surroundings while also getting closer to a whole host of weird and wonderful creatures and
plant life. The park fees paid by escorted tours here go towards maintaining reserves and boosting the local economy, ensuring that tourism does its best to aid conservation. Book it: Rainbow Tours offers a 16-day Madagascar Wildlife Discovery Tour for 2017 from £3,765 per person including flights and transfers.
rainbowtours.co.uk
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ORANGUTANS IN BORNEO Though they might not sound cute on paper, it’s
impossible not to fall in love with Borneo’s famous hairy, ginger and paunch-bellied residents in the flesh. Every year thousands of tourists head to the island of Borneo, one of two places in the world where orangutans live in the wild, and where clients can witness their fascinating human-like habits up-close. Borneo’s tropical rainforests and climate allow a huge variety of other species to flourish too, including rainbow-plumed exotic birds, pygmy elephants and incredible plant life. Single travellers on Just You’s trip to Borneo get their own room and are hosted by a tour manager, and the trip also comes with an optional add-on to Singapore. Book it: Just You offers a 12-day trip to Wild Borneo from £3,099, including flights, transfers, nine nights’ B&B accommodation, some meals and use of an airport lounge in the UK.
justyou.co.uk
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WHALES AND DOLPHINS IN THE AZORES When it comes to creatures of the sea,
you don’t get more ‘A-list’ than the blue whale, and clients who catch sight of the largest creature in the world slapping its fluke on the waves of the Atlantic, or sending hissing spray metres up into the air, won’t forget the experience in a hurry. On the windswept Portuguese archipelago of the Azores in the North Atlantic, clients might be lucky enough to see blue whales in spring as they migrate northwards. On Saga’s Azores tour, clients will be joined by professional naturalist Diarmid Doody for pulse-racing excursions to see fin whales, humpbacks, sperm whales and dolphins, and he will also host several wildlife talks during the trip. Book it: Saga’s wildlife tour of the Azores starts from £1,749 for 14 nights, departing Gatwick on April 8 and June 3, 2017. The price includes return flights, transfers, accommodation, all breakfasts and some meals.
travel.saga.co.uk
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PENGUINS IN THE GALAPAGOS ISLANDS Charles Darwin first arrived on the Galapagos
Islands in September 1835 and spent two months exploring the flora and fauna on this collection of remote islands dotted more than 600 miles away from mainland Ecuador. The rest, so
they say, is history, and Darwin’s discoveries have made the archipelago, and its one-of-a- kind wildlife, forever famous. Stepping foot on the islands is like walking back in time thanks to its prehistoric-looking creatures, and for clients wanting to get up close to the natural world, the experiences they offer are unforgettable. A lack of large predators means the animals who live here are fearless, so clients can swim with playful sea lions, snorkel with penguins, watch giant turtles trudge through forests, and glimpse the famous finches, whose unique beaks sparked Darwin’s theories of evolution. On Collette’s tour, clients can tick off two epic experiences in one holiday: Peru’s Machu Picchu and the Galapagos Islands. Book it: Collette’s Machu Picchu & the Galapagos Islands trip starts from £5,629 for 15 days, including all accommodation, internal flights, transfers, 28 meals, plus a four-night luxury cruise around the islands.
gocollette.com
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THE BIG FIVE IN SOUTH AFRICA A rhino drinks from the river to a backdrop
of sweeping savannah; in the bush, zebra and antelope graze beneath a baking sun; a black- maned lion stirs in thick grass… Clients can expect plenty of spine-tingling encounters with the world’s most majestic animals on a game-viewing
25 August 2016
travelweekly.co.uk 45
TOP TIP
Rainbow Tours has a new Kenya trip
for 2017 exploring wildlife in the Great Rift Valley
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